slide:ology--New from O’Reilly: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

Sebastopol, CA—No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, chances are you’re required to deliver visual presentations to your peers, boss, or your customers. Indeed, presentations have become the de facto business communication tool. Yet unlike verbal communication, thinking visually isn’t easy, natural, or commonly taught in schools or business training programs. Fortunately, O’Reilly’s newest release--slide:ology ($34.99)--fills that void.

This highly anticipated resource is written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design in Mountain View, CA, the firm that created the presentation for “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film. Combining conceptual thinking and inspirational design, slide:ology offers practical approaches on how to create ideas, translate them into pictures, display them well, and then deliver them in your own natural way.

“A great slideshows is determined by the type of interaction a presenter has with their slides” declares Nancy Duarte. “If the presenter is addicted to reading bullet points, then everyone in the room suffers.”

“We can keep blaming software for the putrid output, but in reality we need to take responsibility,” adds Nancy. “As communicators, learning to create visual stories that connect with our audience is becoming imperative--especially in light of global competitive pressure.”

In a recent interview, Nancy offered these tips and tricks as a manifesto to keep handy whenever you’re preparing your next big presentation:

1. Treat your audience as king: They didn’t come to your presentation to see you. They came to find out what you can do for them. Success means giving them a reason for taking their time, providing content that resonates, and ensuring it’s clear what they are to do.
2. Spread ideas and move people: Creating great ides is what we were born to do; getting people to feel like they have a stake in what you believe is the hard part. Communicate your ideas with strong visual grammar to engage all their senses and they will adopt the ideas as their own.
3. Help them see what you’re saying: Epiphanies and profoundly moving experiences come from moments of clarity. Think like a designer and guide your audience through ideas in a way that helps, not hinders, their comprehension. Appeal not only to their verbal senses, but to their visual senses as well.
4. Practice design, not decoration: Orchestrating the aesthetic experience through well-known but oft-neglected design practices often transforms audiences into evangelists. Don’t just make pretty talking points. Instead display information in a way that makes complex information clear.
5. Cultivate healthy relationships: A meaningful relationship between you, your slides, and your audience will connect people with content. Display information in the best way possible for comprehension rather than focusing on what you need as a visual crutch. Content carriers connect with people.

In the book trailer below, Nancy talks about the concepts outlined in slide:ology--a book that is sure to challenge your traditional approach to creating and teach you how to be a visual thinker.